The Life of Meaning

by ABERNETHY, BOBBOLE, WILLIAM

• ISBN13: 9781583228296
• ISBN10: 1583228292
• Format: Trade Paper
• Copyright: 2008-05-06
• Publisher: Seven Stories Press

Summary

Extraordinary people will say extraordinary things, especially when it is Bob Abernethy and his team at PBS' Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly doing the asking. The Life of Meaning presents fifty-nine contributors speaking candidly about their search for meaning in their own personal lives, their experience of God, and for some, the struggle to reconcile faith and doubt. They include Jimmy Carter, Francis Collins, the Dalai Lama, Robert Franklin, Irving Greenberg, Seyyed Hossein Nasr, Harold Kushner, Anne Lamott, Madeleine L'Engle, Thomas Lynch, Martin Marty, Mark Noll, Rachel Remen, Marilynne Robinson, Barbara Brown Taylor, Studs Terkel, Thich Nhat Hanh, Phyllis Tickle, Desmond Tutu, Jean Vanier, Marianne Williamson, and many others. Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly, which Bob Abernethy conceived for PBS in 1997 and anchors, has been described as "the best spot on the television landscape to take in the broad view of the spiritual dimension of American life" by The Christian Science Monitor. In The Life of Meaning, Abernethy, co-author William Bole, and the staff of Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly turn their attention to making a book that asks all the big questions-and elicit the most surprising answers from a who's-who of today's serious religious and spiritual thinkers from across a spectrum of faiths and denominations. Bob Abernethy is the executive editor and host of Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly. Before launching the series, he had served as a correspondent for NBC News for more than four decades. William Bole's articles have appeared in The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, and Commonweal magazines.

Author Biography

BOB ABERNETHY is the executive editor and host of Religion & Ethics Newsweekly, which he developed and created for PBS in 1997. Before launching the series, he had served as a correspondent for NBC News for more than four decades, reporting from Washington, Los Angeles, London, and Moscow. He lives in the Washington, D.C. area.
WILLIAM BOLE’s articles have appeared in the Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, and Commonweal magazines. A research fellow of the Woodstock Theological Center at Georgetown University and an editorial consultant at Boston College, he lives in Andover, Massachusetts.

Table of Contents

Foreword	p. xi
Acknowledgments	p. xiii
Introduction	p. 1
The Meaning Makers	p. 5
Limning the Rites of Death	p. 9
Staring Down the Gods of War	p. 17
Exposing the Spiritual Crisis of Modern Medicine	p. 25
More Than Is Dreamt of in Your Theologies	p. 31
Naming the Real	p. 37
Discovering Things Nobody Knew Before but God	p. 41
Waltzing with the God of Chaos	p. 47
The Meaning of Mud	p. 53
Evil and Suffering	p. 57
A Faith Difficult to Understand	p. 61
Easing the Divine Suffering	p. 67
Evil Acts, Sacred Places	p. 75
Like Living in the Book of Job	p. 87
Damning the Disease, Not (Ultimately) the Deity	p. 91
Smells Like Hope	p. 95
Redeeming the Devil	p. 101
Hope Dies Last	p. 105
Prayer and Meditation	p. 111
The World's Prayers	p. 115
Through the Valley of the Shadow	p. 123
The Former President on Unanswered Prayer	p. 129
Warming Oneself Before the Glow of God	p. 133
Talking to God Straight and Angry	p. 135
On Wintry Spirituality and Napping	p. 139
Praise Every Three Hours	p. 143
The Jesus Prayer and Praying with Icons	p. 147
The Hum of the Universe, in a Minor Key	p. 151
Finding God's Presence in Darkness	p. 155
"I'm Spiritual, Not Religious"	p. 159
On the Altar of Consciousness	p. 163
Unlearning Religion	p. 171
Blessing the Doubters	p. 177
With or Without Religion	p. 181
We're Spiritual and Religious	p. 185
Religion Makes Hospice Calls	p. 191
The Good, without God	p. 195
Being Religious	p. 203
Catholicism
All Is Gift	p. 207
Eileen's Uncle and His Catholic Imagination	p. 217
Stuff Counts	p. 223
Evangelicalism
Is God Still the Center?	p. 229
The Inerrant, Infallible Word of God	p. 235
The Genius of Evangelicalism	p. 241
Who Is Winning-Evangelicals or American Culture?	p. 245
Mainline Protestantism
God Is Not Going to Whomp You	p. 249
Vital Signs	p. 257
The African-American Church
Safe Harbors and Defiant Spirituality	p. 263
Judaism
The Miracle of Existence	p. 269
Reading the Book of Our Life	p. 279
The Soul Is Hovering	p. 285
Islam
Bearing Witness to the One God	p. 289
The Hajj	p. 297
Buddhism
A Message from the Dalai Lama	p. 305
Being Mindful and Engaged	p. 309
The Smaller Sufferings	p. 315
Hinduism
Many Deities, One God	p. 323
Paths Up the Mountain	p. 331
The Measure of Diversity	p. 335
Many Paths, Many Ways	p. 343
Evangelizing by Deed	p. 347
Our Great Challenge	p. 359
The Passions of Jerusalem	p. 363
Lives Well Lived	p. 367
Where the Weak and the Strong Dance Together	p. 371
"Oh, Annie, Whatever"	p. 379
No Return	p. 389
Changing Your Social Footprint	p. 395
Healing Body and Spirit	p. 403
The Cathedral of Charity	p. 409
Listen to Your Life	p. 415
Raging against Boredom	p. 421
Photo Credits	p. 427
Index of Contributors	p. 432
About the Editors	p. 429
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